


like a mighty river

by deadlybride



Series: kink bingo fills [14]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Injury, M/M, Season/Series 08, Watersports, first time in a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:20:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: Newly moved into the Men of Letters bunker, Sam isn't quite sure of where he and Dean stand. An injury on a hunt answers some questions.





	like a mighty river

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2018 SPNKinkBingo, filling the 'Watersports' square.
> 
> also written for the SMPC on Livejournal. :)

The bunker is—Sam doesn't know how to feel about it. Funny, sort of. He's always wanted someplace to settle his head, and he's had those places. A couple of times, actually. Now, here he's got maybe the safest place on the whole planet that he knows about, solid walls, ten feet of concrete between them and the world, and he can't settle.

It's weirder that Dean has zero reservations. Mr. "No Picket Fences" took one look at this bizarre burrow of stone and wood and steel and moved right in. Figures, really. If Dean were ever going to be really comfortable somewhere, it wasn't going to be a ranch-style in Burbank. Even so. Sam's still feeling—off-kilter. Not helped by waking up in a concrete box, alone. He didn't expect that, either, but that first night after he and Dean explored all the rooms they could find, Dean grinned wide and said, _pick a bedroom!_ and, oh. Of course. No rooms with singles side-by-side, and they haven't—sharing hasn't been a thing. Not for… a long time, now. Sam picked a room kind of at random—number 21, for the fan on the ceiling and the interesting accessories left on the desk—and Dean picked another, in an entirely different hallway, and they went to bed that first night and Sam lay awake for he doesn't know how long, watching the fan turn above his bed, listening to… absolutely nothing.

His alarm goes off at 6:30. He's waiting for it, and silences it after three beeps. He's tired and he's not sleeping, and there's no good reason why. Firm mattress, a fine pillow. The bed's too short, but what bed isn't. He's taken to going to bed in pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt because the bunker's temperature seems to be rigidly controlled at 65 degrees, and he's usually not cold but all the concrete seems to seep the heat from the air. He can hear the air filters working, if he strains, and there's the faint electric hum of the fan turning, and that's all. He swallows and the faint dry click of his throat is somehow loud, and he swivels up to sit and puts his feet on the freezing floor and shakes his head, shakes the thoughts from his head. They don't do any good. No point in dwelling.

The shower room is quiet, too, polished and gleaming and impersonal. Little wealthy touches that speak of privilege, even long-past. Sam gets clean, alone, and dresses with the clothes he brought in, and he hovers uncertainly for a second before he dumps his dirty boxers into the laundry hamper waiting neatly by the door. Laundry hampers. Is this what their life's going to be, now?

Dean finds him in the library, later. "Nerding out already?" he says, arch, and Sam looks up from this old record of Men of Letters initiation rituals to find his brother damp and robed and clean, a grin tucked into one corner of his mouth. He's so—happy. Like this is all easy, a life settled, all their problems done and dusted.

"Didn't you take a shower last night?" Sam says, in lieu of answering.

Dean scoffs. "Have you _seen_ that shower?" he says, and then immediately: "I've got to go shopping, the only thing that sucks about this place are those concrete beds. Feel like my ass is bruised."

Sam huffs, turns back to the ledger. Dean disappears down the stairs out of the library, presumably down one of the weird cold hallways toward the kitchen, and Sam stares at the fine cursive writing for a solid thirty seconds before he shoves to his feet, the wooden legs of the chair squealing on the wooden floor, and finds his laptop in its bag on the other table. They haven't hooked up internet yet—and how are they going to do that?—but his hotspot should still work, down here, and—it's time for a distraction. He can't just… sit down here. Not without going crazy. He'll try to find something close, so Dean's not too far away from his precious new toy, but. It's time for a hunt. Maybe it'll help. There's a first time for everything.

*

In the moonlight it's hard to tell, but Sam's been around this block enough times that he knows when Dean's white-faced and pained and trying to hide it. "Don’t be ridiculous," he says, and Dean's in that sweet spot where he's not hurt enough to make him quiet and compliant but just enough to make him _incredibly_ bitchy. Mulishly, he tries to take two limping steps around the car before his leg gives out and he collapses against the side panel with a muffled awful throat-sound. Sam's jaw ticks, his teeth grinding almost painful, and he comes in and hauls Dean upright by the armpits. Gets another impacted grunt for his trouble and Dean's eyes scrunch tight, and with him distracted Sam shoves his hand into the pocket of his coat and steals the keys. "I'm _driving_ ," he says, close, and Dean's eyelashes wetly part enough for Sam to see the glint of his eyes, and Dean nods, but he doesn't say a thing.

He gets Dean carefully folded into the passenger seat, when he won't lay out in the back like a sane person, and he takes the wheel, and starts taking them out of the goddamn forest. The radio is off and it's just the sound of the engine, Dean's pained breathing. "What were you _thinking_ ," Sam says, after a mile of jouncing over shabbily-maintained woodland road, and Dean doesn't respond, but Sam doesn't really need him to.

A monster, in a forest. Their bread-and-butter, or it should've been. Sam thought they were over this, the Dean who'd take the lead without needing to, the way he'd give Sam that look that said _rusty, took a year off, what does he know_ , the way he'd run in and let the bad thing throw him halfway to Sam's heart stopping. Sam doesn't even know what the damn thing was—a twisted too-big bull, fire in its eyes and a body that slipped in and out of this plane to somewhere else—but steel crushed through the back of the skull did the trick. If only he'd gotten there before Dean's knee got twisted badly enough that Sam thought his leg was broken. It might still be, or a ligament torn clean through. If they knew what was going on with Castiel, Sam would try to call for him. As it is—

"We should stop at the ER," he says, after another mile.

Another bumpy turn and Dean hisses, his voice shaky. "Let's just go home," he says, and for a second Sam has absolutely no idea what he means. "Bunker'll have a brace or something in that medic room, I'll be fine."

Winterville, Maine—they're almost as far away from Kansas as it's possible to be while still being in the United States. Took nearly two days to drive here. "Fine," Sam says, gripping the wheel firmly at ten and two, and resolves to take it as calmly and reasonably as possible.

Bright night under a heavy moon and he's still wired, his heart not quite recovered from the action-movie spill of Dean's limbs through the air to hit that tree _that_ hard, and when they're out of the forest and onto the real roads he keeps the speedometer at an easy five over, heading south and west on empty asphalt. Trees everywhere. Dean keeps shifting, uncomfortable. His own damn fault for not stretching out that leg properly, when he knows better, and Sam clenches his teeth so he won't say anything, and that's all that's said, for an hour or two.

In the middle of the night there's nothing to see but the trees, the telephone lines passing in brief glints as the headlights flash by. Tiny towns sit dark off the road and Sam finally stops when a bright all-night gas station appears. Dean goes to open the door and Sam says, "Dude, don't you dare." Dean must hear the real threat in it because he stays put. "Get me a hot dog," he says, and Sam rolls his eyes and gets forty bucks on the pump and of course the roller grill's not on, it's like one in the morning, but he does actually find a sad frozen corn dog which he microwaves and covers in mustard. Two cups of coffee and a bottle of water. Dinner. The glamorous life they lead.

Dean snarfs the corn dog before Sam's even back out on the highway and guzzles down his coffee and then, finally, he sleeps. Sam drives. Weird to be back in the driver's seat. That year, with—the year in Kermit. Never felt right, but he's surprised now to find that he kind of missed it. Good to have something to focus on, hands on the wheel and feeling the engine burr roll up through the metal to his fingertips, the car responsive and moving clean. There'd been a distant rattle, the last month or two before Dean came back—of course Dean knew how to fix it, right away, and the car feels like it always did when Sam was younger. When things were easier.

The road melts away under dark autumn night. Sam's tired but he doesn't want to close his eyes and so he keeps driving, the world restricted to the slice of asphalt illuminated in the headlights. No towns, now, not for a while, what's left of the wild part of the state surrounding the car. It's almost an hour before Dean snorts awake. Sam glances across the seat and finds Dean bleary in the shadows, his face barely visible, slack before it tightens with pain.

"Where are we," he mumbles, shifting.

"Nearly to New Hampshire," Sam says. Won't be too much longer until dawn.

Dean drags his hand over his face, shifts again, winces. His leg really must be killing him. "How's she doing on gas?" he says, after a second. Strain threading under his voice. "Need to stop soon?"

"Not for a while," Sam says, and Dean nods, but he's chewing on the inside of his lip. Sam looks back at the road, shaking his head. Dean doesn't want to ask for something, that's fine. They'll drive.

Roadsigns tick away, mile markers counting up and then down again. Dean shifts, and fidgets, and digs carefully through the glovebox to find the only drugs they're carrying—pharmacy-grade acetaminophen, which won't help much—and swallows three down with half the bottle of water. They pass more small towns, more farms, more woods. "Stop soon, would you?" Dean says, after another hundred miles. "Gotta take a piss."

"I bet," Sam says, under his breath, and he doesn't look over but he knows Dean's probably frowning at him. He shifts his hands on the wheel, checks the rearview. Nothing but night. "Hold it for a while. I don't want to stop except for gas, if we can manage it."

Nothing but the highway hum, for almost a mile. "Trying to get me back for not treating your princess bladder just right?" Dean says.

Sam bites the side of his tongue and lets a slow breath out through his nose. "No, Dean," he says, "I'm trying to get you and your messed-up knee back to what medical attention we can get for it. You can wait to pee, there's still another eighteen hundred miles to go."

Came out maybe harder than he meant it to—Dean scoffs, but there's no comeback, and he looks out the window with his jaw hard, his arms folded over his chest. Sam settles his shoulders and leans one elbow on the door. They'll stop when it's time.

Dawn's breaking bluish-purple behind them when Dean's twitching leg becomes too much for Sam to ignore, and the gas gauge is sinking down toward E anyway. At this point Sam can admit he loves the car, but god is it a guzzler. World's getting a little more populated. He passes another turn-off, just to be an asshole, and Dean sucks his breath between his teeth. Doesn't say anything, though, and Sam maybe feels a little bad, finally. Five more miles and there: another exit, with a bright tall neon sign advertising too-expensive gas and a Dunkin attached, and he flicks the blinker for the no one around them and actually hears Dean's relieved intake of breath. Maybe he should've turned on the radio. The silence between them reveals way too much.

He pulls right up to the front of the c-store and Dean's already fumbling at his door. "Dude—" Sam says, and sighs, and gets out into the chilly morning to walk around the hood. Dean's got the door swung open by the time he gets there and he's managed to get his leg out to stick stiffly out into the parking space. "There's no way."

"Back up," Dean grits out, and Sam obligingly steps back, hands up, to watch the idiot claw into the unyielding car frame and lever himself upright, pain etched into his face. All his weight's on his left leg and he wobbles, clinging to the door, and he manages a single hop but almost falls, his wrecked leg completely unable to help. Sam catches his weight before he tips over, hands on Dean's chest and tucked into the warmth of his pit. He's close enough to watch the expressions that ripple over Dean's face, but the expected agony's followed quickly by alarm. "Shit," he says, faintly, and then: "Okay, I—god, I've really gotta go, Sam."

That panic—Sam slings Dean's arm over his shoulder and curls a bracing hand around his waist, kicking the Impala's door closed behind them ("Watch it!" Dean manages). They wobble into the fluorescent-flooded inside together, and there past the coffee machines is an ugly brown sign that says _Restrooms_ in curly font, and they still know each other's bodies well enough that hobbling Dean across the slightly sticky floor's quick enough. The doors are for _Cowboys_ and _Cowgirls_ , and normally Sam would make a crack but Dean's panting in his ear, his hand so tight on Sam's shoulder that it kind of hurts, and so he just pushes inside and takes the usual chemical double-blow of bleach and old piss straight to the face, and the room's empty, thank god. They stagger over to the urinals and Sam holds Dean straight, upright, while he fumbles with his belt and zip, and Sam tears his eyes away before he sees—and he's looking straight ahead at the greyish tile wall when that first spatter hits the porcelain. Dean whimpers, shuddering almost all up along Sam's side, his bad leg shifting awkwardly against Sam's, before the whimper turns into an almost-sexual groan.

Jeez, he's—really got a lot to unload. Sam tips his head up, shifting his arm along Dean's back. "You really had to go, huh?" he says, inanely.

"Wasn't lying," Dean mutters back, and Sam was expecting—he doesn't know. Not that tone. The piss stream keeps spattering down against the urinal, scent rising unfortunately up. Sam glances over, can't help it. Dean's eyes are closed, his brow knotted.

Despite the surroundings, despite what they're doing, he still smells—the same. Basically the same. Sweat and the car, and the laundry detergent they both use. Sam bought that kind even when he was living in Kermit. Amelia didn't like doing laundry and she didn't care, and Sam would pour the powder into the little cup to measure it and that smell would take him back years. Decades.

The stream finally peters off and Dean's shoulder shifts, tucked under Sam's, as he shakes off, as he tucks himself back and away. Sam reaches out and flushes, and Dean glances at him, so close. His eyes are tight at the corners, still hurt, but the relief's making his mouth soft. Sam licks his lips. Dean blinks, and takes in a breath, and glances down, slightly wobbly despite Sam's hold. "Come on," Sam says, and it comes out quieter than he thought it would.

Hobble over to the sinks and Dean leans his hip hard against the counter, and Sam stands braced just at his right side. In case. He keeps one hand on Dean's arm and stretches way out to snag a couple of paper towels from the squeaky dispenser. In the mirror Dean's drawn, tired-looking. He pitches the wad of paper towel into the trash can in a neat basketball-star arc and then drags his hand over his face, scratches at his jaw with the loud scrape of too much stubble. Sam puts his fingers light in the center of his back, and Dean nods, and so Sam braces underneath Dean's arm and walks him back out to the car, moving slow under the puzzled eye of the poor kid working the early morning shift.

"We could enter a three-legged race, huh?" Dean says, quietly, and Sam snorts. He takes all of Dean's weight in the short hop off the curb and takes him to the backseat. No arguing, this time. Dean sighs, but he lets Sam lower him down with their hands locked on each other's wrists, and he carefully stretches his right leg out on the seat, twisted around on the bench. Sam shuts the door behind him and he leans back, tips his head against the window. His shoulders are hunched, his position awkward. Sam touches the glass, cool, and then goes back inside for supplies. Still some ways to go.

Breakfast in the car: coffee, and gluey pastry, and a surprising apple that didn't look too bruised. He hands the sack of random snacks and drinks to Dean over the bench, and doesn't get too much whining about how he got Gatorade instead of beer. He's still got some hours of driving in him and the coffee helps, so it's cruising along the highways in a world that's waking up, traffic getting thicker. Radio on and he keeps it tuned to classic stations, even if he's heard these songs a hundred (a million) times, and Dean starts humming along after a while. When Sam checks the rearview Dean's eyes are closed, but he doesn't look quite as wrecked now that the light's full in the morning.

Gas again, driving again. Sam gets Dean a couple of magazines—he's never been good at being a passenger. New Hampshire melts into Massachusetts, into New York, and in Pennsylvania Dean finally says, "You yawn one more time and I'm hitting you over the back of the head," and, okay, yeah. Sam's really tired. South of Scranton he cuts onto a state highway, and then takes a turnoff to a town he's never heard of, and there's a bunch of empty grassy nothing with trees all around, and he turns onto a narrow lane without a roadsign and pulls off onto the shoulder. When he turns the engine off it's totally quiet, out here. Another bit of hidden world, carved out of the bigger one.

"Don't snore," Dean says.

Sam shifts around on the bench so that they can see each other. He won't be able to lie down, his leg too stiff still to bend right. Sam feels bad, sort of, but—he's just too tired. "I'll do my best," he says, and then he slides down into the crumple of bent knees he's always had to use in this car, his head pillowed on his folded jacket and his feet pressing up against the other door, and there's no reason it should be as comfortable as it is but, well. It is. He closes his eyes, turns his face in against the back of the seat away from the shady afternoon sunlight. Dean breathes steadily, close. Perfect.

He wakes up who knows how much later, startled and smacking a hand against the seat. What—oh, that's the—

"What are you doing?" he says, struggling to sit up. Ow, his arm's all pins and needles, asleep as much as he is, or was, and he has to shake his head hard.

Dean's door is open and he's gone. Sam sits up higher, panic clenching in his throat, but—no: he's laid out flat, trying to drag himself over and get out of the car.

"What the hell," Sam says, and Dean says, "Shut up, I'm—I've got to—" and that's panic too, echoing back, and Sam shoves open the driver door and slides across the bench out onto the grass, staggering for a second before he comes around and grabs Dean's shoulders.

"You're going to hurt yourself, idiot," he says, and Dean punches his chest upside down but says, "Get me out!" and Sam pushes him up and gets both arms around his torso and pulls him bodily straight out of the car, lifting up as he goes. Dean's left leg scrambles for purchase and he yelps as his right knocks a little against the seat, and his hands fist into Sam's shirt, his breath hitching. Sam braces, shifts his grip around Dean's stomach, and Dean slaps at his hand, says, "Jesus, don't, don't—" with his voice thin and sharp and Sam lets go, confused, and Dean staggers back into him, a lurching step back from the car, and Sam's been running on autopilot so far, he hasn't really gotten it, and it's not until he catches Dean again that he realizes that Dean's fumbling at his jeans and, oh, peeing again, a sharp acridity rising up as the stream hits the thick grass, here under the verge of trees.

"Fuck," Dean says, his weight slumped back against Sam. His voice is thick.

Sam wraps his arms around Dean's chest, holds him up, buries his face down against Dean's shoulder. Dean's breathing has gone a little staggered and so has Sam's. This is—a life lived as cheek-by-jowl as theirs has been, of course he's heard Dean pee, has seen it, but this feels different. A memory rises unbidden of—that town, where was it, where they stayed for three weeks in a horrendously snowy January, and Dean actually trying to pee writing into the snowdrift, and even at ten Sam thought it was ridiculous. He slides a hand down Dean's chest, his stomach, to the lowest curve of his belly, the skin shuddering under his touch. The stream slows and Sam's breath is making Dean's shirt hot and damp but he doesn't want to pick up his head. He moves a hand to Dean's hip, squeezes. His hips press forward against Dean's ass. Been a long time. They haven't really talked about it.

"Okay?" Sam says, quietly. Finally.

Dean's shoulders move against his chest, but he doesn't say anything. Sam drags his nose against Dean's shoulder, and up, along the side of his neck. With his eyes closed, it's like nothing's different. His mouth glances against Dean's skin but he doesn't—he doesn't kiss or tongue or bite, not like he wants to, because they might have agreed that things were okay, they might have promised, but that question's still open, waiting. Dean's hand comes up and grabs Sam's forearm, squeezes, and his skin's so soft and familiar here in that space behind his ear before the velvet fuzz of his hair starts, and Sam thinks—maybe—and slides his fingers down, over the warm denim of the hip and in, and then Dean squeezes his arm and says _wait_ but—oh. Damp. Wet.

His eyes open, finally, and Dean's ear is flaming red, what Sam can see of his cheek matching it. "Dean," he says, helplessly, and Dean turns his face away, strains for a second against Sam's grip. Sam squeezes tighter, automatic impulse, and Dean subsides. "It's okay. Sorry, I—but look, it's fine. No big deal."

"Easy for you to say," Dean says, rough and embarrassed.

Sam slides his hand back up out of the wet spot and cups his belly, lightly. "Easy because it's true," he says, and carefully he takes most of Dean's weight and maneuvers around the wet spot in the grass, walks them back over the three stumbling steps they took from the car. Dean braces against the roof, his head dropping between his shoulders, and that means Sam can let him go and pop the trunk, go fumbling through Dean's duffel. Weirdly organized—his brother is a confusing person—and so, there, fresh jeans, fresh boxers. When he comes back around Dean hasn't moved. "Come on," Sam says, and Dean picks his head up with his eyes still closed, but he does finally hop around so that he's braced between the roof and the open door, and then—yeah. He tucked himself away, zipped up, but. Wet spot. Not huge, but obvious. Sam leaves the clean clothes on the back window and starts undoing Dean's belt, trying not to think about it, and Dean's eyes fly open, his mouth parting.

"Good thing no one's around, huh?" Sam says, light. He gets the belt open and sets his fingers on the button.

Dean licks his lips. "Yeah," he says, and his voice cracks on it. "No free shows."

Sam undoes the button, unzips, and pushes the jeans and boxers down just below Dean's ass. His dick's soft, shining a little, and Sam says, "Come on, sit, it'll be easier," and Dean takes Sam's hands again and does, his bare ass against the seat. Sam crouches and unlaces his boots, quick, tugs them off and tosses them into the footwell, and then Dean braces on his left leg so it's easier for Sam to work the tangle of cloth down, Dean's thighs bared in the late-afternoon dappled sunlight, and Sam's as careful as he can be when he pulls it over the swollen knee but Dean still hisses and grabs hard against the car frame. Oh, and it really is swollen, too—not as obvious when it was hidden in the jeans, but now Sam can see purple seeping up under the puffy skin, bruises raised on his thigh and calf too. Sam touches lightly at the skin and watches Dean bite his lip, breathe through it. The so-light layer of golden hair on his thighs is just the same, his gingery pubes grown out a little more than Sam remembers. He used to keep so neatly trimmed. He shifts, his left knee tipping out, and Sam jerks his eyes up to find Dean watching him, face carefully still. God, his eyes.

Sam grabs the clean clothes and rolls them so they're easy, and lets Dean push one socked foot in and then the other, and eases them carefully up over his knees, and when Sam reaches his ass he braces on his left foot and lifts himself up by the car roof and Sam hikes the waistband up over his hips. He lets Dean take care of tucking himself in, of zipping up. "Boots?" Sam says, and Dean shakes his head, quiet, and Sam puts his hand on Dean's good left thigh, squeezes a little. "Tell me, okay? Just tell me."

"Yeah," Dean says, again, and Sam bites his lips and closes the door once Dean's shifted around inside again, and he has to close his eyes and breathe in the musky wood for a long held moment before he can face getting back in and driving again. Over a thousand miles still to the bunker. What are they doing.

He's wired. He drives. Distance melts away, highway disappearing below the tires. Dean's quiet, in the backseat, and the radio morphs in and out, classic stations fuzzing into modern rock into country into Cincinatti's premier hip hop something something. Sam follows whatever's old and keeps driving. When they stop again for gas he stands in front of the coffee counter for almost a minute, but then gets two tall coffees like he always does, Dean's with a little hint of sugar he'd pretend not to want, and Dean takes the cup held over the backseat without meeting Sam's eyes. Midnight when they stop again, at an all-night diner with a couple of rowdy teenagers and some solemn truckers, and Sam helps Dean slip on his unlaced boots and walks him through to the bathroom again. Another guy at one of the two urinals and Dean freezes, but Sam pushes him along to the handicapped stall and makes sure he grabs the bracing bar. "Text me when you're done," he says, and Dean frowns but Sam's already back out into the too-bright restaurant, slipping into a booth and rubbing his eyes with both hands. Too much. It's just—too much.

After they eat Sam pilots them around to the quiet back of a big gas station where the semis park to sleep. He needs another two hours if they're not going to drive off the road. Dean's been quiet, though he smiled and flirted with the fifty-year-old waitress like there was absolutely nothing wrong. Temperature's dropping fast. Sam turns off the car and says, "Good night," and Dean says, almost over the top of him, "Sorry, Sam."

Sam twists around on the bench. Dean's still leaned into the corner, stretched stiffly out, and the lights in the parking lot are bright enough that he can see the closed eyes, the face tipped away toward the rear window. He doesn't say anything and after a long moment Dean sighs, folding his arms over his chest. "For being a dumbass," he continues. "Back there."

Sam bites the inside of his cheek. Dean sprinting ahead toward the monster, taking the hit. Getting hurt, and for a second Sam had been sure, had been _positive_ , that that was it. How lucky that the throw only potentially ruined his knee, and didn't snap his neck. What would Sam have done, then?

"I know you're pissed," Dean says, and Sam isn't exactly, not anymore, but he doesn't contradict. "It's not that I—I wasn't trying to treat you like a kid, or something. That forest reminded me of…" His eyes slit open, dark gleaming in the dim as he looks out the window. "Well, doesn't matter. I thought I had a good angle to get its throat, wasn't expecting it to turn that fast. Should've waited, should've done your play."

His voice is so firm. Like he's been steeling himself to it for the past five hundred miles. Sam nods, and Dean glances at him with the movement but then his eyes drop just as quickly to his lap. "I get it," Sam says, long seconds ticked past. He does, even if he doesn't like it. Dean wouldn't be Dean if he weren't dealing with some kind of damage. Even so. "Just need you to trust me, man."

"I do," says Dean, immediately, frowning.

Sam nods again but, well. It's easy to say things and harder to do them. "Good to hear," he says, with a brief smile, and then he scrunches down and puts his head on the pillow of his jacket and closes his eyes. Dean takes in a quick breath, like he's about to say something, and then lets it out again. A few hours of sleep, that's all Sam needs. He hopes it's quick in coming.

*

They get back to the bunker at the trailing end of the afternoon. Almost two days back across the country and Dean's knee's still looking pretty rough, he still can't rest his weight on it. Sam helps him down the steps to the recessed entrance door, and then it's the careful half-hopping down the stairs with Dean pressed up against his side, warm and panting, until Sam can flip the big switch that turns all the lights back on. Dean leans on him, sweat sprung up on his temples and a grimace tucked into his mouth.

Nothing's changed, down here. Austere and odd and old-timey, that smell of paper and old books. Overpowered a little by Dean, and Sam's sure he's not much better, both of them ripe from two days in the car and wearing the clothes they hunted in, for the most part. Sam adjusts his grip around Dean's back and tries to think. "What now?" he says. "Medical room?" They obviously wouldn't have modern braces, but Sam remembers some things from earlier rummaging that he could use.

Dean ducks his head, shifts his weight, his hip bumping against Sam's. "I, uh, I could use a shower first, if—I mean, if that'd work," he says.

Dean's obsession with the damn showers. Sam sighs, imagining wet tile, slipping feet. "Do you _want_ to crack your head open?" he says, but he's thinking already of, maybe one of the chairs from the library situated under the showerhead.

He gets a scoff, though it's weak, and Dean whacks him lightly on the shoulder. "You're not exactly smelling like roses here either, man," he says, and when Sam looks over Dean's looking at him, eyes steady.

Asking. Sam reaches up and wraps a hand around Dean's wrist where it rests on his shoulder, tugs him back into place. Dean lets him, lax. His weight, malleable under Sam's hands. "Yeah," Sam says, sliding his arm down Dean's back, wrapping a hand over his hip, and he watches Dean's eyes as the dark pools wider in them.

This isn't a rush, a heady stupid fall headlong into each other like so many times in the past. Sam's heart beats heavily in his throat, helping Dean down the long concrete corridors, passing his randomly-selected bedroom until they come into where the Letters set up their prep-school locker room showers. Gleaming white tile, silver fixtures. There's a table set up along the wall where the fresh towels sit, and Sam leans Dean up against it by the hips, their boots knocking gently together. "Need help?" Sam says, and Dean shakes his head, and so Sam takes a step back and peels his shirt off, and his undershirt, the cool air immediately settling on his skin. Dean does the same, and—Sam's seen him half-stripped since he came back, but it's still a faintly unfamiliar surprise. His shoulders seem broader, somehow. Still has that soft chest, that soft stomach, and Sam sets his hand flat on the center of it, Dean's skin so warm and smooth. Dean lets him leave it there, for the space of two gently lifted breaths, and then Sam backs off, kicks off his boots, sets his hands to his belt. Feels like years since he's been shy, but he drops his eyes now anyway, undoes his belt and button and zip and bites the corner of his mouth before he pushes everything down, letting it all drop down to the tile floor. Quick duck to strip off his socks and then he's naked, bare of everything, and when he looks up—

Dean's ears have turned pink, his mouth parted and damp. His eyes drop straight to Sam's crotch, gratifyingly quickly, and just this closeness, this acknowledgment, that would be enough. Sam reaches out and undoes Dean's belt, eyes on his hands, and it's—like before. Just helping. Dean's hands go to brace on the table behind him and they clench hard when Sam goes down to one knee. Boots off, socks off, and then he peels down the jeans to find Dean's dick half-plumped, curved gently left over his heavy neat balls, and the smell of him down here is sharp, musky, and even so Sam's mouth goes wet. He helps Dean step out of the jeans and drags his thumb carefully over the purple stain of bruise, but he stands up. No sense in rushing. Dean sucks in a shuddery breath, looking up at him, and Sam squeezes his shoulder. "Hang on."

The shower comes on in a rush of immediate hot water, a pounding pressure. Sam runs his hand under it, checking the temperature. Dean's waiting. His eyes follow Sam the few steps back across the tile and he takes Sam's hand, sways into him, and their bare skin pushing warmly together at thigh and hip and chest is—god. Sam swallows. Not fair to have gone without this for so long. Dean's breath puffs warm against his throat, his hand sliding up Sam's side, and Sam pulls, walking them both to the shower. Might as well be clean, really. They've got the time.

Dean's hands are still familiar. They lean against each other under the steady hot spray and Sam watches Dean's skin pink up, wet and glowing. He braces Dean's arm while he soaps up, scrubbing foam through his short hair, and holds him steady while he rinses off. Dean's fingers slicking a long stroke up his back, sliding easy on the soap. Washing his ass, his balls, not making a show of it, and Sam's chest thrums with want. He's chubbing up, his dick more than interested as he cleans himself with Dean's weight pressed up perfect and slick against his side, and Dean says, soft under the noise of the water, "Goddamn, Sammy," in that admiring way that hits right in Sam's hindbrain. Just like the first time, so long ago, both of them drunk and desperate.

They're not drunk now. Desperate could go either way. The bubbles smear away under the water, leaving them both clean, and Dean turns, his dick pressing up against Sam's hip, his mouth against Sam's chest. Sam curls an arm around his back, holding him close, and he's thinking now of drying them both off slow, walking them to any of these stupid bedrooms and laying Dean out on the bed, taking their time. Dean pulls back, though, huffs a puff of breath that Sam can barely feel through the steam, and he says, "Long drive," nonsensically.

He's got a grimace painted on when Sam looks down. He shifts, pulling away just a bit, and then Sam gets it, immediately, with a flood of heat that sinks straight to the pit of his stomach. "Gotta go?" he says, and Dean's eyes jump to his at how rough his voice was.

That last stop for gas. Sam got out and peed but Dean was dozing, didn't want to, and Sam brought back water and coffee anyway. That was—what, four, five hours ago.

"I told you to tell me," Sam says, now, and Dean blinks at him and while Sam's watching his face floods with color, his mouth parting. "You need to? Now?"

Dean's hands clench on Sam's arm, his shoulder. His weight shifts onto his good leg but Sam tugs him closer, tipping him right up against Sam's body, and he slides his fingers down Dean's belly to the low curve just above his dick, that soft space Sam can hardly get enough of. Gentle pressure and Dean twitches, mouth dropping open and, god, Sam hasn't kissed him yet. What is he doing, what is he—but he's hardening up, regardless of the alarms his brain's trying to toss out, and—yeah. This.

Sam braces Dean's weight and slides behind him, holding him with an arm over his chest, the shower pounding down on their shoulders, Sam's tucked in just above Dean's. His dick presses up against the high curve of Dean's ass, his back, all that wet warm skin, and Dean pushes back against him, his hand flying back to grab Sam's hip. Sam can't smell him now, both of them are just warm and clean with minty soap filling the air, but he puts his nose in Dean's hair anyway, and slides his free hand down and down until he's pressing against Dean's belly again, and he presses now hard enough that Dean's hips flinch and he says _Sam_ , whispery under the water. "Go on," Sam says, against the pink curve of Dean's ear, and he slips his fingers down and—ah, Dean's dick, and he circles around the half-chubbed weight of it, holding it easy. Dean grabs his wrist, arches his back, but Sam's got him. "Come on, let go."

Dean's hand clutches around his wrist so hard that it hurts, that Sam's pretty sure he's going to have a bruise—but after a held weird taffy-stretched moment he sucks in a breath between his teeth and his dick flexes tellingly in Sam's hand and—ah, god. Sam can't hear it under the roar of the shower, doesn't need to look. Dean groans and his body cringes back, but the only place he has to go is straight back into Sam, and Sam holds him tight around the chest and rocks his hips in against Dean and finally kisses him, on the temple and the side of his neck, dipped down to perfect curve of his shoulder. There's a faint smell carried on the steam, but it's washing away faster, and Sam gently squeezes Dean's dick and Dean says, "What the fuck," faintly, and Sam—he can't wait, then, he can't, he takes Dean's weight and pushes him up against the wall, and a last warm spatter hits Sam's thigh and Dean gasps, turning his face away, but Sam grabs his chin and tilts him back and kisses him for real, warm water slipping between their mouths. God, his taste. Dean's hands clench against Sam's shoulders and he gasps against Sam's lips, but he kisses back, hard and wanting, just as much as Sam is.

Sam slips a hand beneath Dean's right thigh and picks up the weight of it, hauling it up against his hip, and their dicks slip together, perfectly, Dean's hardening up now just as much as Sam's is. "Hold onto me," he says, against Dean's mouth, and Dean wraps an arm around Sam's neck and grabs his arm and Sam's free then to shove their hips together, groaning as he crushes into all of Dean's perfect skin. "Sammy, god, what—" Dean mumbles, but Sam ducks in and kisses him again and then all Dean has to do is moan into him, and moan louder when Sam slips a hand between them to rub at Dean's dick, his balls, to wrap them both into his grip and jack them together, his hips working them in a rough slide. He braces his feet, keeps Dean's thigh tight around his hip, and Dean's hand goes to his ass, pulls him in tighter, rougher, helping as much as he can when he's pinned like this. Sam bites his lower lip and then ducks down, sucks against his throat, the curve of his neck, and Dean groans loud and tightens his arm around Sam, his hips pushing in, his dick smearing over Sam's belly. God, god—Sam wishes his knee were better, wishes he could shove him down to the floor and fuck into him, wishes he could get Dean to fuck him, wishes they'd been able to get past all their stupid shit months and months ago, wishes—but this, god, it's working, Sam can feel himself winding up, ready to blow, and he drags his mouth up Dean's neck to his ear, says, "Tell me." Squeezes Dean's dick, jacks him quick and steady, bites there under his ear, and Dean gasps against him, says _fuck_ , says quick and breathless, "Yeah, Sam, yeah, I'm—" and Sam pulls back enough to look down between them and see Dean spurt, his hips flinching up against Sam's and white smearing over Sam, over them both, and Sam groans and leans in and shoves wet and hard into the giving heat of Dean's belly and finally comes, his balls unloading in thick jerks, Dean's hand on his hip holding him close, Dean's mouth open and panting against his shoulder.

His muscles shudder, weak for a second. He nearly drops Dean's leg. The shower's still running behind them, and it's so steamy-warm in here Sam almost can't breathe, for a weird moment. Dean's mouth drags against his shoulder, sucks a kiss against it, and then he says, "Hey," soft, and Sam drags up his head and finds Dean's face red and his eyes heavy, and he ducks down and kisses him, gentler now, their tongues pushing softly together. Dean's mouth. He really doesn't know how they lasted this long.

His nose bumps Dean's, when they pull apart again, and he leaves one more kiss on the corner of his mouth but then just lets their foreheads tip together. "What was that about, Sammy," Dean says, quiet.

Sam shrugs. He slips his hand down between them and gently gathers up Dean's softening dick, still fat with blood, and Dean hisses in a breath but doesn't stop him. He squeezes, careful, and watches one last drop of white pearl up at the tip, and smears his thumb against it. He doesn't know, either. Not really.

Dean pushes Sam's hair back from his forehead, shoves it behind his ear, and Sam picks his head up finally to find Dean's face pink, blushy still, but—not upset. Not freaked. That's something. Dean studies him for a few seconds and then says, serious, "You look like a drowned rat."

Sam snorts. "Charming, thank you," he says, and gets to watch Dean smile at him, warm and close. His chest goes tight. He smears the come over his belly and says, "We're gross again."

"Whose fault is that," says Dean, and the shower's right there, still running, but Sam grins and dips and kisses Dean again, open and easy. Dean huffs, mutters, "Greedy," but when Sam pulls back he reaches up and puts his finger against Sam's dimple, and his eyes are soft.

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/178823367664/like-a-mighty-river)


End file.
